Monday, February 27, 2012

On education...

In Washington, where for good or ill I live, one must have and maintain a license to teach in the public schools. To get this license, one must have various credentials and pass assorted tests and background checks.

I propose the addition of one small item to the requirements. The successful completion of a term of military service in the armed forces of the United States prior to being granted an initial license. I.e., in addition to a teaching degree a potential licensee would need to present a DD-214 marked "honorable discharge".

Current teachers are unaffected by this wee change. As time goes on, I suggest a cultural change may occur.

My experience of veterans, while anecdotal, has been largely positive. And I find that the percentage "common sense per capita" of my limited sampling is notably higher than that of the general population. I'd suggest this is the culture we want passed on, rather than a power-blended mixture of anti-American liberalism/green propaganda/anthropogenic global warming cultism.

Beyond that, I'm fairly ok with the notion that if someone puts in their 3-6 years of service where they are potentially in harms way...that they have "dibs" on a fair chunk of public sector jobs. Teaching, postal service, etc. Things that need doing, but that can be springboards to greater success.

Caveat: not a military man, veteran, reservist. I've known a couple, and read a lot on mil-blogs.

Now, my comments: the military has developed a very effective method of teaching and training.

Training is intended to help a person accomplish a specific task, and the military has an effective process for that. (I think it's Explain/Demonstrate-and-Explain/Force-Trainee-to-Practice/Trainee-Demonstrates-Competence/Trainee-must-Demo-and-Explain-to-Another-Trainee.)

Teaching is intended to increase knowledge and ability to think. The military puts a high priority on applicable knowledge, but also on ability to think and act under pressure.

While not all of this experience prepares a person for the job of teaching, it does prepare any potential teacher for weeding out BS and getting to the point of his task.

Which ought to be pretty useful in teaching.

And the general idea (of giving military veterans a priority in getting .Gov jobs) seems useful. Not a panacea, but useful.